Monet - La terrazza a Sainte-Adresse

CLAUDE MONET

An exponent of Impressionist art, he was born in Paris in 1840, and in his youth (1859) he studied at the Académie Suisse where he met Pissarro. At Gleyre's studio he met Bazille, Renoir and Sisley, with whom he painted "En plein air" in the forest of Fontaine Bleau. A few years later he met Manet, (they would often work together.) At the age of thirty, he married Camille Doncieux. In 1878 he moved to Vétheuil to paint "en plein air". After overcoming a period of economic crisis, thanks to exhibitions, at the end of the nineteenth century Monet became rich and famous. During this period he bought a house in Giverny, where he died.

Description of The Terrace at Sainte-Adresse by Claude Monet

It depicts a bathing terrace in the foreground with the sea in the background. On the horizon, windswept sailboats and steamboats sail in all directions. On the terrace, a man and a woman in elegant nineteenth-century clothes are leaning against the wooden balustrade of the terrace. On the right, an elderly man, depicted in profile, is seated in a wicker armchair. Next to him sits a young woman, portrayed from behind, sheltered by a parasol as white as her dress. A green flowerbed is painted on the right, while on the left, flowers and gladiolus extend towards the terrace. Finally, in the center, a circular flowerbed is flanked by two tall flags. Long shadows are cast to the right and to the front of the painting. In the blue sky there are clouds and smoke from boats.

Interpretations and symbology of Claude Monet's The Terrace at Sainte-Adresse Garden at Sainte-Adresse is the title by which Claude Monet's painting is listed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Monet, after a few years, called this work "the Chinese painting in which there are flags". In fact, the painter painted The Terrace at Sainte-Adresse in the years when Japanese painting was very influential, a fashion called Japonism. In the 1860s and 1870s Monet, Manet, Renoir, Whistler and other painters of the group collected Japanese color woodcuts with great interest. Monet may have taken inspiration from this woodcut, which is still on display in Monet's house in Giverny.

The characters portrayed in the painting

The two flags fixed at the top underline the tourist prestige of the Sainte-Adresse baths, which was a fashionable resort, much loved by bourgeois French and English tourism. Monet's father, Adolphe Monet, appears in the scene, possibly depicted in the seated man in a Panama hat. Historians have recognized the painter's family members in the other characters. In the painting we can capture the carefree and brilliant atmosphere that reigned in France during the Second Empire. Monet painted the yellow and scarlet gladiolus, which resemble the colors of the Normandy flag, perhaps as a tribute to the region where he spent his childhood.